The Used
by N92.9141b
Summary: The story of soulmates is universal: human meets human, heart meets heart; quick and simple, like a name written on the underside of the wrist. At least that's how it's meant to be. But no one ever accounts for those born blank. Even they forget to account for themselves. Arthur has melted into these used, faded people. Alfred, perhaps, can change that. Soulmate AU; USUK.


When he first saw that man he thought inexplicably of crocuses, lusty purple petals unfurling perfectly to meet the sky. He thought of sunlight, and he thought of human warmth, the two things people had to hoard in this part of town.

In seven years, he'd never seen a flower bloom in the cracks of their sidewalks, never smelt the cloying perfume of spring's bowers waltzing through the air. Even Nature, it seemed, hated this place. A sentiment everyone shared.

Arthur watched him from a distance, green eyes half-lidded in undisguised apathy. Idly he wondered why he even bothered remaining there on the front step. Why he bothered staying anywhere.

The man was tall, he noted, with hair painted in honey tones, with a presence larger-than-life in the mold-ridden silence of this world. His eyes were blue, like finely-made glass, like a color photograph of the sky still unbleached by the strands of time. And the oddest thing - they held some strange glimmer of _something,_ he himself had forgotten the name for it - some odd thing that left all who saw him wondering.

Strange, seeing a man like this here - for whom without a soulmate could seem so unflinchingly _happy_? This half of town was painted in blues and grays, painted the faded colors of flagging existences, for that very reason. And the people living here were the shadows behind the bookcase; they were the things one saw but never remembered, the things most easily lost in the movement of the world.

Their stories were all the same: on their nineteenth birthday, the day their white wristbands were to be removed, their soulmate's name had not been written on their wrists like God's firebrand, and that was that, the end of a normal, happy life. These were the people who'd found a blank slate rather than the beginning of a rumored perfect love, who'd instead of having their eyes opened found themselves blindsided.

Yet, Arthur marveled, still this man broke convention, bore it all like a victory rather than a burden. Suitcase in hand a testimonial of the heart he held, written out in the blank space under his sleeve, shoulders squared. Like a soldier going to war without ever having fired a gun, without knowing what it was like to stare an enemy down.

 _Not like I care_ , he reminded himself. Still he watched the man closely as he plunked his traveler's bag down in front of the small government-allocated cinderblock dwelling, watched him turn and wave hello with a sun-beam stretched across his face as if he didn't know any better what happened to sunbeams in this place. As if he couldn't tell just by looking.

He wanted to be cynical about it all, wanted to scoff or ignore the man, let his jaded expression and lack of response speak for themselves.

Instead he nodded politely and hurried back into his own house, face lightly tinted red by - what? A sense of embarrassment he hadn't felt in years. A sense of _something,_ something he'd forgotten the name for, that he hadn't known in years. And maybe something more than a slight twinge of regret.

Hell, he'd even thought of smiling back.

* * *

It was springtime, but just barely so, and the faintest of breezes snuck in like a thready whisper, ruffling Arthur's hair as he entered the small bakery. Unlike most places custom-made to catch customers, this one bore no cheery window displays of fine pastries and fresh fare, no merry bells above the gray-speckled awning above the tiny bodega. The only vestige of former life it bore was the smell of fresh-baked bread.

The tender inside - it was always the same man, an older, maybe early-forties man, but Arthur still did not know if he owned the place - was no different. He spoke only in hushed tones and fluid movements, his brown eyes placid and cold. Arthur knew the man well enough; this tender was the closest thing Arthur still had to a father (his own had disowned him long ago, as had the rest of his family, after the discovery, but that didn't matter now), and to the tender, Arthur was the closest thing there was to a friend. But this was a judgement made in the loosest of definitions; while Arthur frequented the bakery often, every time they would speak for only a short while. Then they would part ways, fading back into the mirage of their respective lives.

Come to think of it, in the seven years he'd lived here, he'd never even asked the man his _name._ Neither of them had ever thought of it, and now it seemed like one of the implicit truths of their lives.

The vast majority of the time it would just be him and Arthur in the store. No one else lingered anywhere longer than they had to. But today was different. The new man - Arthur had mentally dubbed him _the flower man_ \- stood before the counter, a blinding grin on his face, chattering away like a robin heralding the spring. Arthur, standing unobtrusively by the door (he wouldn't join in on the conversation, not as long as he didn't have to) could see the twisting displeasure on the tender's face, painted in undertones of bitterness.

He was gesturing at something rapidly and irritably from behind the counter as the flower man looked on, curiosity in the tilt of his head and the question in his stance. It seemed the flower man was trying to engage him in conversation, but the tender was having none of it. The man hesitated and dithered a bit ( _honestly, did it really take so long to decide on what bread to take home? It wasn't as if there was anyone to impress,_ thought Arthur), and the tender exchanged a quick glance with Arthur, annoyance written in his intelligent brown eyes and in his stance, hands on hips.

Oh, why couldn't this man just _leave?_ This was reminding him of all kinds of things he'd sworn to move past, like real conversations, and having real reasons to waste money on the best pastries.

Then the man straightened and seemed to reach a decision, uttering a loud, enthusiastic exclamation and gesturing wildly. The tender nodded, and muttered something audibly under his breath, and Arthur winced, knowing how biting those insults could be. But the man - the man -

The man simply laughed.

He'd thought that that, like love, was gone from the world. (Or perhaps the two were the same thing.)

He inched closer to the two men, eyes flickering between the tender and the other man's back. Now he could hear the tender's insults in addition to seeing them, and he couldn't decide which option was worse - having to guess or knowing the truth.

Watching the exchanges (Arthur was sure the tender was enjoying it; it was rare to find good banter these days) he almost felt a little guilty. The man - really, something about the flower man invoked ideas of boyishness and youth rather than manhood, but his figure suggested otherwise - and somehow, a strange innocence. No, it was naivety. Innocence was too light of a word. Too easy to condone.

(Vaguely, he wondered what he must look like through that lens.)

It was of its own accord that his mouth opened. A first, even before all this - not thinking before speaking. And suddenly, he found himself defending a man he didn't know for a reason he could not fathom, and rediscovering one of the strangest emotions created for humans - surprise.

From the looks the tender and the flower man were giving him, it seemed that they were rediscovering it too. But neither said anything as the tender bagged the pastries and handed them across the counter. Arthur nodded politely, paid quickly, and hurried out with his usual bag of scones, ears burning. Maybe that was enough social interaction for the day.

He had barely rounded the street corner when a yell reached his ears. No name associated, no major identifying points, but somehow he knew exactly who it was. Arthur turned just in time to meet an offered hand, shoved in his face.

"Hey, thanks for all that back there! I swear, that guy working the counter - hoo boy, maybe he forgot his morning coffee or something, he was nuts - yeah, so thanks for helping me out! His pastries look good though, I guess I'll catch him in a better mood next time. Why're you staring at me like that? Do I have something on my face?"

Arthur, bemused, gingerly shook the proffered hand, shaking his head mutely.

Briefly he wondered again about crocuses and blue skies. And about the extraordinary man in front of him, laughing.

"Anyway, my name's Alfred!"

 _Alfred._

* * *

 _ **Author's Notes:**_

 _ **So.**_

 _ **Hello again, everyone.**_

 _ **This is really more of a test run than an actual fic... at least, it is for now. This is something I've been working on for a while - completely unedited, hopefully not as nonsensical as I believe it to be... and I want to know if it would be worth continuing. If this story is compelling, if the ideas at the core of the story make sense. And yes, I know it's USUK. For some reason, the vast majority of the great writers on this website write USUK or Spamano, and I suppose this story is kind of a reaction to that from someone who's probably not qualified to offer commentary on the subject. I don't really know.**_

 _ **If you like this one, please let me know. If not, this will be deleted soon enough. Thank you for your time.**_

 ** _Edit: something I'd like to clarify: the tender is not an OC. His identity will be revealed in due time._**


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